


Justice

by RequiemForAbsolution



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Closure, M/M, Masochism, Punishment, Revenge, Sacrifice, Sadism, The Divide (Fallout), Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9534119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RequiemForAbsolution/pseuds/RequiemForAbsolution
Summary: The Divide was broken, and Ulysses is determined to exact his revenge. Then the Courier comes to him, willingly, to sacrifice himself so that they might both find closure. Ulysses finds absolution in punishing the Courier, who, in his turn, finds absolution in suffering through the consequences of his own actions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, originally this was going to be the last of a series of drabbles done, revolving around Courier/Ulysses and a very strange, stalkerish, symbiotic and destructive dynamic between them. But instead I'm just going to post this, and maybe work backwards from the end.

 

* * *

 

 

_I take responsibility. You take vengeance._

A familiar figure, memory etched in hatred. 

_I broke the Divide. Break me._

The words were a bare, harsh whisper amongst the dust.

_No more death._

He knelt. His naked wrists were held out in silent offering.

_Take it._

And Ulysses did.

 

* * *

 

He would not lie: he did not understand the Courier before him. Once, he had, in the radioactive storms that burned the Divide. That Courier had been in love with blood and with war, and he had understood the destructive nature of what he carried with him. He had been intoxicated by the nuclear codes, with their secret relationship to the warheads buried beneath the Divide. And he had smiled - a sweet, childlike smile - as the Divide broke beneath their feet. 

This was not that Courier. This was different.  

The one who had destroyed the Divide was not the one who had returned.

Ulysses folded his arms, and studied him. 

There were six scars across Six's face. One for each finger of a Deathclaw: those had been there when the Courier had come to the Divide. They had been new, then: harsh, red lines, angled downwards from his cheek to his lips. Now they were faded, more white than red, but still brutal to look upon. The last scar, however, was new. It was a crater impacted in the centre of his forehead, and the skin had dipped and knotted in an attempt to heal the injury, and protect the broken skull behind. It was a bullet wound, to be sure, and Ulysses could not say that he was surprised that someone had tried to kill the Courier. Nor was he surprised that he had survived.

Nothing else had changed significantly. The auburn hair was a little longer; the body, stripped bare, a little more toned than he remembered. He still wore his orange-tinted goggles, and he winced when Ulysses drew them away from his face. He was the only person still alive who had ever seen the Courier without them, of that he had no doubt, but this was the first time someone had ever forced the Courier to look at him with his naked eyes.

There was a sickening power in that.

Perhaps they'd both changed. 

Neither of them spoke as Ulysses bound the Courier. He buckled leather belts around his ankles and thighs, and then twisted his elbows and wrists behind his back, to bind them in a perverse mockery of prayer. The Courier let out a harsh exhale at this, and Ulysses recognised the sound as something that was meant to be laughter. So that hadn't changed either: the hoarse, broken voice, so unused that it was barely more than air when he _did_ speak. 

_Nothing we do here_ _will bring back the Divide. I will destroy your home and force you to watch, so that you can understand._

_No home. Won't hurt._

_Not even your shining city of Vegas?_

_Not mine. Theirs._

The hell of it was that Ulysses believed him. A thick, nauseating anger churned in his stomach. The Courier offered him a thin, mocking smile. In turn, Ulysses stroked a finger along the thin cheekbone. Then he drew his hand back, and struck. 

The Courier hit the floor. A sickening crack reverberated throughout the air. When he looked up at Ulysses, the damage became clear. The fragile bone had shattered. Together with his blistered lips, the sunken pit in his forehead, and the five harsh scars torn over his cheek, the asymmetrical dip on his other cheek made him look even more broken. But that hellish gleam had come back into his eyes. The old fury. The addiction to destruction. Even if that destruction was being visited upon his own body. And Ulysses felt fury and passionate victory twist inside him, and his fists flexed by his side. 

Revenge, it seemed, felt good. And for the first time in a long time, some bitter imitation of happiness was burning inside him. 

_So, then, Courier. If your suffering is all that you can give to me. How? How do I break you?_

He laughed. Like all his words, the voice that shaped it was hoarse from disuse, a rasp that was more air than noise. Even tied up, one cheekbone broken, Six managed to twist his lips into a smile that made them crack and bleed. But there was nothing contemptuous or mocking there, nothing how like it used to be.

_Don’t know. Don’t care. Do what you have to. Make me hurt. There’s no home for me. Nothing for you to hurt. I wander. So do anything. Fuck me. Burn me. Leave me for the Marked Men. Let ’em do it for you. Irradiate. Amputate. Don’t care. Only way we can both live is if you give it your all._

_I will not break my promise. I will not kill you._

_You **can’t.** _

_… No. That’s true, isn’t it? You survived the Mojave. The Sierra Madre. The Big Mountain. The canyons of Zion. You even survived what you made of the Divide._

The Courier offered him a bleak, twisted smile. Blood dripped from his chin. And Ulysses ran a hand down the thin, angular hip.

_You would let me do anything I wanted to you._

_Yes._

_No matter what I did... whether I did leave you outside, or took you to the valley where the Deathclaws roam, or electrocuted you until I saw your skeleton inside your body... whether I burned you, or smeared poison over your limbs... you would survive. I could do **anything** to you. And you would survive. My promise would not be broken. _

He inclined his head. And for the first time since the Divide had burned, Ulysses smiled.


End file.
